@Yoko2112 Well said. I’d like to add, concerning “quirky/weird, mainly humerous, exaggeration of life, might fail at delivering a serious atmosphere”: for me the difference in that respect between Sims 1&2 and Sims 4 (leaving out 3 because the approach is more serious in that game, which is why it feels like the odd one out for many) is striking. In 1 and 2 the quirky part supports darkness, because it’s sharp and the starting point is human behaviour. In Sims 4 the starting point is not human behaviour, it’s being silly, weird, funny, clowny. An example for this is the way highly skilled sims cook. In all the games (also 3 in this case) they show their expertise by showing off. In 2 and 3 (don’t know what it looks like in 1) this showing off stays loyal to what they’re doing: cooking. In Sims 4 it rather looks as if they’ve become jugglers in the circus, it doesn’t look like cooking anymore (same with mixing drinks, what on earth are they doing). For me that’s where it goes wrong. It’s not exaggerating human behaviour anymore, it’s overdoing it, trying too hard, and by doing that missing the mark (as far as I’m concerned, obviously).
When I play Sims 2 (didn’t know the game, first played it when I got the UC) it strikes me how the quirkiness in fact is highlighting human behaviour, using it as a tool in order to be able to go very dark and still have a laugh about it. Which is essential I think for this franchise the way we know it.
